228 THE GANNET 



a hundredth part of them, it is hopeless, and I soon 

 abandoned the attempt. Let us imagine ourselves seated 

 on the verge of those beetling cliffs, with the deep sea 

 below, and throngs of birds passing and re-passing, whose 

 wild cries, discordant as they are, seem to harmonise with 

 the tenor of their surroundings. There is an old poem, 

 four lines of which are very descriptive of this noisy hive 

 of birds : — 



" The air was dirkit with the foulis. 

 That cam with yawmeris and with yowlis, 

 Whith shrykking, screeking, skyming, scowlis, 

 and miklie noyis and showtes."* 



Intensely interesting as are the whole of the cliffs, there is 

 one spot which to my mind exceeds the rest, and it is one 

 where the Gannets can be seen to perfection. This is the 

 north corner, but one must go there when the wind is blowing 

 towards that part of the Rock. Here, provided the wind is 

 right — that is from the north-west or north-east — the 



marvel that they could vibrate their wings so rapidly, and at such close 

 quarters, without coming into actual contact with one another" (B. of 

 N. Z., sup. 47). 



* These lines are from " The Fenyet Friar of Tungland," written in 

 the fifteenth century by William Dunbar. The fourth line is not given 

 in all editions. A somewhat later poet, John Skelton, Laureate to 

 Henry VIII., writes of " the gagling gaunte," but the earliest allusions to 

 the Gannet in poetry are to be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles {see 

 pp. 20, 21). 



